Yes it is John. It's got some great photos in there (p245 top), including an iconic Leica-archives photo of one of the all time great motorcyclists of the last 50 years, the late Mike Hailwood (p245 top on the Honda 350-6) (killed with his daughter by an errant truck driver making an illegal right turn). I have his biography with the same photo inside.

lenticular11 wrote:
Must visit that gallery...for the second time, thanks!

The particular exhibition I mentioned (http://nga.gov.au/Photospace/ ) has ended. Not sure what's there of photographic interest right now but they had a few interesting images in the Australian Art section (IIRC) from Dr Julian Smith and J.B. Eaton dating to the 30-40's or so.

Some times the Portrait Gallery (next door) is better, with more photographic work on display.

I did see some interesting street photos in the National Gallery when visiting the recent Lautrec ex., but don't recall the photographers as I confess I'm not much of an art/photography follower, more a self-dabbler photographically speaking of course! (Edit: It must have been that 70 years of American street life, that you kindly linked above.)

Anyway, I diverted the thread, so back on topic. Today I received a Gumtree-purchased Canon LTM 50/1.4 in superb condition, at a great price and from the same supplier where I recently bought a Hawks adapter.

For CONUS friends I guess Gumtree is our Craigslist equivalent. It's prone to scammers, so I also recently baited a lowlife who purported to be from Western Australia, selling an M9 at an unbelievably low price.

I don't buy gear very often. My camera is a 1Ds III bought years ago, most of my lenses were bought about 7 years ago when I switched from Nikon to Canon. But I did buy a 100mm f/2 Zeiss Makro about three years ago.

There's a DsII on the boards right now for $975. Rationally, I know that I know that it was a great camera for its time but that technology has made leaps and bounds over what it is and it's just a sense of nostalgia for what a great time I had shooting the camera when I had it that makes me at all interested. It's not like I could easily use many lenses on it. I have the Elmarit R 35/2.8 that's still in R mount, so it would be easily adaptable. At least it's a lens that I genuinely love at a focal length I find easy to use for most of my shooting. It could be like the bulkiest, least convenient 135 format fixed lens solution ever.

Hi, my name is Brad and I'm a gearaholic. I'm posting my irrational train of thought here to keep me from following it to its illogical conclusion. Thank you for your time.

sebboh wrote:
the 1.5 is cooler looking and a lot heavier. no idea how it performs, more sonarific i imagine.
Yeah it's heavy, just like my 50/1.8, they are very solid, lots of brass and glass in them, I hear it's one of the sharper Sonar 50/1.5's based on Zeiss's design that was liberated after the war ended.
I do have a Helios 103 which is also a Sonar design and it's very sharp, so if its that sharp I'd be very happy.
I haven't seen many pics from the 50/1.4 which is why I'd like to see more pics with it.